Emirates to take 14 aircraft in next fiscal year
 

By: Kurt Hofmann (Air Transport World)

Emirates Airline plans to take delivery of 14 new aircraft in its upcoming fiscal year beginning April 1, and retain four others it had planned to remove, owing to strong traffic demand. The carrier operates 15 Airbus A380s, a number that will grow dramatically as deliveries ramp up.

“We [will] start constant delivery of the remaining 75 A380s from September 2011,” Divisional SVP-Commercial Operations Worldwide Richard Vaughan told ATW in Dubai. He said the A380s are still a kind of marketing tool and that passengers will change their schedules to be able to fly on the aircraft. Two of the airline's 14 full flight simulators at its training facility in Dubai are dedicated to the type.

“The machine created a new landscape [for EK],” he observes. Vaughan confirmed that EK has no plans to install a different cabin configuration for high-density routes such as to India.

DXB suffers from capacity problems during peak hours. “It is a challenge for us to get our aircraft out on time,” he said. The strain should be eased somewhat when Concourse 3 is fully operational in 2013. It is dedicated to the A380 and will be capable of handling 25 of them at once. The Dubai government has not decided if and when EK will operate from the new Jebel Ali Airport, which is currently used by cargo airlines.

Commenting on the 2011 outlook, Vaughan said forward bookings are looking good but adds that "the price of fuel could be a problem if it rises to as much as $100 a barrel."

EK carried 27.5 million passengers in the 2009-10 fiscal year, 60% of them changing aircraft in DXB. South America is one of the areas where EK believes there is scope for further expansion, but no definite routes or dates have been announced. It currently serves Sao Paulo Guarulhos. Copenhagen will become EK's 27th European destination when it launches Aug. 1. The city of Basra, Iraq, became its 110th destination Feb. 2. EK will add a tenth daily flight to Australia in October, increasing the number of weekly offered seats Down Under from 22,000 to 25,000 in each direction.

"When we open a new destination in Europe, we need to add capacity in places such as the Far East and Africa to balance the network,” Vaughan explained.

How will that help?

The problem is not enough runways to land on, not gates to park at.

Now SIMOPS on the other hand.....

Maybe it would help if so many arrivals weren't scheduled to land at the same time!

Yes, but as a hub, having "waves" of arrivals and departures is essential to allow reasonable connection times.

Still, making schedules that just don't work because the Airport simply doesn't have the capacity to handle the numbers makes no sense either....

My current monthly bowel movements is more than DWC's aircraft movements.

Diarrhea?:}

Using Jebel Ali's traffic count as a yardstick, I would say constipation. Every time I drive past there I try to picture a white elephant.

So we have one airport that is clogged up beyond belief to the extent that almost nothing leaves on time and 50km up the road the world's biggest airport is under construction, with 5 runways and who knows how many terminals.

Hmmmm, there must be a solution here somewhere but I can't quite see it. Let me think about it.:ugh:

think you might find that there is no cash flow to finish the airport properly

Enough Pilots?
 

Apart from parking spaces, would they find enough pilots to man these planes by the time of their arrival?

There are enough White Elephants around here. Actually most of the stuff south of town sold by Nahkeel...

The airports aren't the bottle necks, it's the airways. Oman, Bahrain and Iran simply do not have the airspace capacity to sustain EK, EY and QR at the stated growth, i.e. ordered Aircraft. It's only one of them.

So we have one that's insanely profitable, two that're not but have (almost) unlimited cash behind them.

Let's see which one makes it...

^^ Actually, two are profitable. One is not so far.

'The airports aren't the bottle necks'

You are kidding right?

Talk to the LIDO guys and see what they tell you about airway capacity.

IBS

Err....how about talking to those of us who FLY THE AEROPLANES?

We get some delays outbound due to the airways, but by far the biggest problem is inbound- We get happily through all the airspace with no problem, to then have to hold for prolonged periods due to the number of aircraft landing at Dubai.

SHJ and ADB traffic uses the same airspace- and DON'T get inbound delays.

I guess other airports in the UAE only have a fraction of the traffic so it`s understandable that they don`t suffer the same delays. Unfortunately due to the airspace, our procedures and everyone wanting to arrive/depart at the same time it just grinds to a hault.

They think that they are trying to improve things by reducing the useable taxiways and making aircraft take mid point departures but I just can`t see things getting any better anytime soon. It appears some of these great new ideas are made from behind a desk and not by anyone with a licence to work the traffic, i`m sure it looks good on powerpoint.

It doesn`t help much at night when Abu Dhabi book the first hour of slots for their own aircraft before they are ready and force us to wait until ours are ready creating an instant 45 minute delay through Tardi.

As for JXB, they`ll need to get permission to use both ends of the rwy before they can take much in the way of traffic.

So that's ATC's fault then, is it? It's YOUR airline who schedules in this way (yes , there are others but the majority of peak traffic is emirates). Last night shift I worked, we had 75 arrivals in a 3 hour period, NOT counting SJ/JA/RK (around 25 more). Maximum capacity is 28 per hour and that's NOT including extra space behind A380s or go-arounds caused by the idiots who blatantly ignore speed control, while saying nothing! :ugh:

AD - nothing to do with Dubai CTA - no effect whatsoever. Also minimal traffic in comparison.

SJ - Depends on the situation. If the delay is due to runway capacity at DB (or lack of it), what does that have to do with SJ traffic? :confused:

:D

Don't suppose anyone noticed the huge rubbish dump just off the end of the (proposed) runway during the planning stages? Wonder who they'll blame that on? :E

Your bosses say its 32.

BTW: London Gatwick has 40+/hour on a SINGLE runway.